Shane Richmond is Head of Technology (Editorial) for Telegraph Media Group. He first joined the Telegraph in 1998 and has been Online News Editor and Communities Editor. He writes about all kinds of technology but especially Apple, iOS, ebooks and ereaders, and digital media.

However, Apple have been in touch to say that when you compare like with like, iPad prices in the UK aren't that different from in the US. US prices don't include sales tax but the UK prices do include VAT.

The US prices – $499, $599 and $699 for the 16, 32 and 64GB wifi models and $629, $729 and $829 for the 3G models with the same storage – would increase by around 10 per cent in California, for example, once you add sales tax. Apple says the fair way to compare the two is to deduct VAT from the British prices.

So the 16GB 3G iPad, which will go on sale for £529 in Britain on May 28, costs £436 before VAT. Using an exchange rate from XE.com, I make that $645 – 2.5 per cent more than the $629 you'd pay for the same iPad in the US. That 2.5 per cent, Apple says, can be explained by a variety of factors, such as fluctuations in exchange rate; when Apple did the calculation on Friday afternoon the difference was 2.3 per cent.

The difference is slightly larger for the 64GB 3G model – around 2.9 per cent using today's exchange rate – and smaller for the 32GB 3G model, which is 0.33 per cent more expensive once VAT is removed.

Of course, Apple is bound to make this case – they don't want Britons to think that the iPad is poor value. But they are right that the price difference is considerably smaller once VAT is removed. What do you think? Is VAT the real culprit for rip-off Britain?